First National Mall tribute to an African American begins Nov. 13

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A model of the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial is seen on Nov. 2 in Washington. On Nov. 13, celebrities, corporate leaders and ordinary Americans will help turn the first shovels of dirt for the memorial.

WASHINGTON — On a hot August afternoon in 1963, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech to a mostly black audience from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

On Nov. 13, a half-mile from Lincoln’s iconic statue, a diverse group of celebrities, corporate leaders and ordinary Americans will help turn the first shovels of dirt for a memorial honoring the civil rights leader who was slain 38 years ago. It will be the first monument to an African American on the National Mall.

“He’s an American hero, and beyond that he’s a hero for all sorts of people,” said poet and novelist Maya Angelou, who is scheduled to join Oprah Winfrey and others who have been working for more than a decade to help build the monument.

Angelou, 80, said the groundbreaking is even more special because it comes almost a year after the death of King’s widow. “She never was a person to say ’Why didn’t it happen sooner?’ That would not be Coretta Scott King,” Angelou said of her friend, who died in January at 78.

Following the deaths of Coretta Scott King and civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks, who died in October 2005, efforts to raise the necessary $100 million to build and maintain the four-acre memorial accelerated.

Pace of donations picks up
Donations, mostly from major corporations, had totaled less than $40 million through August 2005. But as of Nov. 1, donations topped $65.5 million.

Harry Johnson, president of the Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial Project Foundation, said he hopes to have the site completed by the spring of 2008.

The location is flanked by the Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson and Franklin D. Roosevelt memorials near the eastern edge of the Potomac River Tidal Basin. From a distance, visitors can see the stairs where King delivered his most famous speech during the March on Washington on Aug. 28, 1963.

The entrance to the memorial will include a central sculpture called “The Mountain of Despair.” Its towering split rocks signify the divided America that inspired the nonviolent efforts of King and others to overcome racial and social barriers.

“This gateway was designed to lead visitors to the heart and soul of this living memorial,” said Ed Jackson, Jr., the project’s executive architect.

Private, corporate donors
Among those invited to attend the ceremonial groundbreaking are the Revs. Andrew Young and Jesse Jackson — who were with King on the trip to Memphis that preceded his April 4, 1968, assassination — and former President Bill Clinton, who signed a resolution approved by Congress authorizing the memorial in 1996.

“You could compare it to the assassination of JFK,” Hilfiger said, remembering how King’s assassination touched his Irish-Catholic family. “It was so significant in our lives as teens and young people. It was earth-shattering.”

Hilfiger is working with hip-hop impresario Russell Simmons to help raise another $35 million for the project over the next six months.

Major galas and concerts are planned in New York, Houston and other cities, including a National Dream Dinner at Washington’s John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on Nov. 13.